Alienated!
by Penname wa Silver B
Summary: Determined to get rid of Dib once and for all, Zim plots the perfect irony: He turns Dib into an Irken. However, Zim has now saved Dib's life and taken him in, for reasons even he doesn't understand. Finished.
1. Zimship Falling

(A/N: I started this a little while ago, and picked it up again recently. Obviously, I can't say where I'm going with this, but hopefully I can say this won't your average Zim fic. As always, reviews are incentive to write, so if you like this, feel free to drop one and the fic will update soon.

Disclaimer: Invader Zim belongs to Jhonen Vasquez and Viacom. And for all you know, I could be either one! Kidding. I'm not.)

Alienated!

In an alleyway in the middle of the suburbs sat a brilliant purple-and-turquoise house of warped proportions, which looked like it had been drawn by a child, rather than built by an architect (substitute in "alien" for "child," and you'd be closer to the truth there). In front of the house, a couple decorative pink pufferfish and laser-armed security cameras disguised as simplistic green lawn gnomes stood guard. Night had since fallen, shading all in darkness, and only chirping crickets broke the silence. Well... chirping crickets and the sounds of spaceships doing battle somewhere high above the ground. Metallic clangs, searing ray-blasts, sonic booms, small explosions and infuriated shouts rang out over the otherwise quiet neighborhood. Then, with a climactic KA-BOOM, all the noises stopped but for one increasingly louder scream. Yep, there it is again, getting louder, see? Yup... louder and louder and louder... little muffled... louder though... okay, heading back to the past tense now... A shadow appeared on the lawn, getting larger as the scream grew louder. And then, without warning (unless you count the scream and the shadow, those were pretty good warnings) a diminutive spacecraft crashlanded into the lawn, cracking the cement path in half and taking out a few gnomes. The scream went on as the screamer leapt out of the ship, little robot in tow, ducking behind a gnome close to the house.

"Hurry GIR!" Zim hissed urgently, having finally stopped screaming.

"Okiedokie!" With misplaced casualty, GIR tromped toward Zim, who had to jerk him behind the gnome for cover as the robot was too dense to figure he should do it on his own. Just in time; a fraction of a second later, the already badly damaged spaceship exploded, leaving nothing but flaming shrapnel and a humongous crater where most of the lawn had been. Just outside the edge of the crater, Zim stared at what little was left of the Voot runner in disbelieving despair while GIR found old gum stuck to the bottom of his foot, peeled it off and began chewing it.

At that instant, a second, slightly beaten-up but functioning spaceship zipped out of the sky and hovered six feet above ground level in front of the dismayed alien. The domed windshield slid back, revealing a smug human child with pointy hair and a biiiiiiiiig head sitting in the cockpit.

"What kind of alien spaceship blows up that easily, ZIM?" Dib taunted. "I think it's obvious who the superior - " Dib's ship sputtered and shook violently, reminding him it hadn't come out of the battle entirely unscathed. "Uhh... I'll mock you more tomorrow." At Dib's prompting, the ship closed its windshield and sped out of sight. Zim stood still for a few moments before clenching his fists and teeth.

"GrrrrrrRRRRRAAAAUUGGGGH! FILTHY, HORRIBLE, PIG-STINKING DISGUSTING DIB-BEAST-HUMAN-**THING!****AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGHHHH**!" Kicking a dirt-clod with all his might, Zim launched into a tirade of growls, hisses, grunts and shrieks, the primitive-sounding basis of the Irken language. The only word clearly distinguishable in this rant, and frequently appearing at that, was "Dib." Okay, more of a name than a word, but... still. DO NOT QUESTION ME I CONTROL YOUR ENTERTAINMENT! So, Zim yelled and hollered and complained and attracted a growing crowd of curious neighbors. Zim was out of disguise, but having had him for a neighbor THIS long, nothing could really surprise the humans at this point. Besides, nothing good was on TV.

With a final "PITIFUL HUMAN WILL RUE THE DAY HE MET ZIM," the little alien turned heel and trudged inside, slamming the door just as GIR darted in.

---

What was once Tak's ship skyrocketed into the Membrane garage, breaking part of the building's interior and adding a few more dents to the already bady damaged ship. Normally Dib would have been concerned, but for now he was too ecstatic; repairs could wait, he decided, leaping out of the ship and darting into the house, all but vacant but for the small figure on the couch.

"Gaz! GAZ! You won't BELIEVE what happened!" Uncharacteristically thrilled, Dib accidentally slammed into the couch's back, tumbled over and landed upside-down on the cushions in his excitement. His sibling growled and scooted away, keeping to the screen of her GameSlave 2 attentively.

"Go away Dib, I'm at the last level," she muttered.

"But the SPACESHIPS, Gaz! THE SPACESHIPS! It was right out of a scifi movie!" Dib righted himself and went on excitedly. "Zim and I were fighting with spaceships and lasers and flying gophers and explosions! THROUGH THE SKY! IN SPACE!" He pointed upward with an expression reminiscent of a madman. "It was even better than that time Zim and I fought with Mars and Mercury! It was GREAT!" Grinning broadly, he collapsed on the couch sighed gleefully. Gaz grunted, but kept playing.

Getting up again with a blissful smile, Dib commented, "Y'know Gaz, for all the disrespect and danger, sometimes defending the Earth is worth it!" He caught himself. "I mean - it's always _worth it_, but, when Zim has these crazy alien ideas and I have to go out and stop him - it's fun, you know? Before Zim came to Earth, things were pretty boring. I mean sure, sometimes Dad unleashed a hideous oyster monster of doom and we had to help destroy it, but that was only occasional. Yeah... it's almost a shame I'll have to reveal Zim for the horrible alien creature he is and cut his guts open."

Gaz played for a few moments before asking, "Will you go now?"

"Yep," Dib replied, sliding off the couch and heading upstairs. Skool would start in a few hours; he'd get some sleep and worry about fixing the spaceship tomorrow.

---

_"Yeah... it's almost a shame I'll have to reveal Zim for the horrible alien creature he is and cut his guts open."_

_"Will you go now?"_

All six gloved fingers laced together before his face, Zim watched the screen pensively. Situated in an obscure quadrant of his base, Zim watched the Earthenoids through an Irken spycam hidden in the Membrane household.

"Horrible _Dib-stink_," Zim muttered. "Cut _my_ guts open - HAH! YOU'LL NEVER GET MY GUTS, DIB! NEVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRR!" Snapping his attention to a nearby monitor, he demanded, "COMPUTER! How are the Voot's repairs progressing?"

"2 percent repaired," the computer reported. "Estimate until repairs are finished: 23.7 hours."

"That is NOT ACCEPTABLE!" Zim roared, leaping up on his chair. "WORK FASTER!"

Calmly, the computer responded, "Faster is not possible. The ship is being rebuilt from scratch."

"Scratch? I gave you the parts that were left," Zim glowered.

"Oh, yes." The computer thought back to the singed seat stuffing and broken engine casing it had been given to work with, in addition to base materials and the Voot's original blueprints. It had thrown them away, not to Zim's knowledge; in that state, the fragments were useless. Fortunately, Zim's wandering mind had moved on to other things - well, one thing.

"DIB!" the Irken growled. "This is all that dirty HUMAN's fault!"

"What dirty human?" GIR wondered, floating by on a strangely flight-enabled rubber pig.

"DIB!" Zim barked.

"Who?"

"DIB!"

"Who?"

"DIB!"

"Who?"

"THAT HORRIBLE STINK-BEAST WITH A HUMONGOUS HEAD!"

"Oooohh... big-head boy! I know him," GIR said pleasantly. The pig did a spin through the air, spinning GIR with it. "WHEEHEEHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! FLY, PIGGY!" Quivering with anger, Zim sat back down and crossed him arms sulkily.

"That _Dib_... piloting Tak's ship... The wormbaby thinks he'd good. Irken good. Well he's NOT AN IRKEN! HE'S NOT! HE'S - " Zim paused mid-sentence, his look of rage swiftly melting into one of smug conniving. "Yes," he smirked to himself, swiveling in his chair toward the console and starting work on something. "He's _not_..."

And evil laughter rang out through the neighborhood all through the night.


	2. Pakked With Excitement

(A/N: Looky-loo! It's the next chapter! Try not to EXPLODE with excitement, kids! This should clear up any questions you had, and raise even more. Enjoy, and remember to leave a review on your way out.

Disclaimer: I'm... still not Jhonen Vasquez or Viacom. Don't worry about it, it's a common mistake. I think it's the hair.)

Chapter 2

"Hey crazy!" "Yeah, crazy!" "Having fun being crazy, crazy?" "You're crazy!" "Crazy crazy crazy!" Brow set firmly, Dib did his best to ignore the taunts directed at him as he walked the skool's halls. Well, for a little while, anyway.

"Crazy?" He spun around and faced them. "I stayed up all night fighting an evil space alien so Earth wouldn't be enslaved by evil space alien overlords! Why? For you people! For all of Earth! And you're calling me _crazy_?"

The other kids exchanged glances momentarily. "Dib's craaaaaaaazy," someone muttered. The others agreed sagely. Dib groaned and headed into class, taking his seat and stifling a yawn. Ms. Bitters hissed in his general direction, but was otherwise quiet as she hunched doomily over her desk and waited for the students to file in to the classroom.

Zim was last to arrive by a good five minutes. Ms. Bitters slammed a tardy beaver (that would be a beaver with the word "TARDY" painted in sloppy red letters across its back) on Zim's desk and growled. The beaver's eye twitched spastically. Getting back to some doomy lecture or another, Ms. Bitters returned to the head of the classroom while Zim lifted the tardy beaver by the tail, inspected it critically and quickly shoved it inside his desk. Moments later, he was assaulted by a wadded-up ball of paper. Shooting Dib a glare, Zim didn't have to open the wad to know it was yet another drawing of himself being opened on an operating table in graphic detail (the Earth-boy had some deep-seated emotional problems, Zim suspected). He brushed the wad off his desk and resumed pretending to listen to Ms. Bitters.

On the other side of the room, Dib didn't even pretend, but instead studied Zim intently. Reading his obsession's features as expertly as any other obsessive stalker, Dib knew that something was up with his alien adversary today. He wore that look of smug satisfaction, the one he only wore when he had recently completed some dastardly plot of alien doom. Dib determined to find out what it was.

---

As a welcome change, the cafeteria was actually serving something edible: fried chicken with a side of chocolate pudding. Eager to cherish the seldom event, students were quick to line up and quicker to cut ahead of someone else, starting a few fights. Finding all Earth food equally repugnant, Zim was in no such hurry, and somehow found himself toward the back of the line, despite having gotten to the cafeteria rather early. Only one pudding cup remained, which the reluctant alien reached a quivering hand out to.

"DIBS!" shrieked Mary, the child behind Zim, as she darted forth, snatched the pudding and bolted to her table. Forgetting he'd been stolen from, Zim looked around in surprise.

"Dib? Where is the dirty human?" Zim demanded, but recieved no reply. His eyes settled on the human's large head quickly, Dib himself seated at the same table as always, accompanied only by his sister. Smiling to himself, Zim hefted his still-empty lunch tray and marched between table rows, purposefully passing Dib's table by.

"Hey, ZIM! How's your ship doing? Still in little pieces?" Dib jeered triumphantly, instantly leaping out of his seat at the alien's presence.

"Oh, it's almost fixed," Zim responded coolly (and untruthfully). "Never underestimate the power of Irken technology, Earth-monkey."

"Really?" Dib smirked, reading Zim's features and easily spotting the lie. Before he could go on, however, he spotted something else tucked beneath the small alien's left arm. "Hey, what's that?"

"Hm? I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT," Zim announced loudly while shifting his arm to allow Dib a clearer view of the object. It was a spotted, ovular Pak, just like the one Zim himself wore on his back. Noting Dib's automatic interest, Zim allowed it to fall. "OOPS! I have accidentally dropped my accidental normal boy thing, accidentally. It's sure not some sort of alien artifact! Nope," Zim stated obviously, sprinting to his table on the last word and standing on his seat to get a good look at what happened next. While casting a suspicious eye to Zim's forced behavior, Dib was nonetheless intrigued by the fallen Pak and stooped to retrieve it.

"HAH! Just as I suspected!" Dib held the Pak up high for all to see. "THERE'S NO DENYING YOU'RE AN ALIEN NOW, ZIM! ONCE THE SWOLLEN EYEBALL GETS A LOOK AT THIS, YOU CAN KISS YOUR ORGANS GOOD- " Several uncomfortably sharp metal instruments sprang out of the Pak. " - bye?" The metal instruments extended and plunged themselves over Dib's head and into his spine. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Some students looked up as Dib's pained scream rang out across the cafeteria. There was an excruciating crunching noise as the Pak secured its appendages in Dib's backbone, then reeled itself in and attached itself to Dib's back firmly. With a cry, the young paranormal investigator struggled to pull it off, but the Pak would not be moved. Then, the Pak sprouted a short appendage that ended in a wicked point, and stuck Dib with it.

"OW! Ooooohhh..." Dib's legs buckled beneath him, sending him sprawling out across the unsavory filth of the cafeteria's tiled floor. Whatever the Pak had injected him with, it was fast-acting. Dib groaned, eyes sliding closed as he lost his grip on consciousness. The last thing he was aware of Zim's hysterical, triumphant laughter.

---

"Hey, crazy kid, you okay?" "Are you alive, crazy kid?" "Hey, crazy!" A small crowd of kids had gathered around their fallen peer, out of curiosity rather than concern. Dib felt his ribcage being toed sharply and groaned again. Creaking his eyes open, he was allotted a dim view of the numerous crumbs and stains on the floor around him. He also saw his hand. Noticing something strange, he wriggled his fingers slowly.

"Hey... does the weird kid look weirder than usual to you?" one of the students asked suddenly as Dib wriggled his fingers a second time and began to count them. One, two, three... one, two, three... His eyes switched to the other hand, which wriggled its fingers in turn. Again, he counted; one, two, three.

"Yeah, now that you mention it. Hey Dib, you look kinda... green."

"Green?" Dib repeated. Shoving his hands under him, he forced himself to his feet. He wavered slightly, but quickly regained his balance and was otherwise fine. The kids around him, on the other hand, didn't look so good. In fact, if he hadn't known better, Dib would have said they looked downright terrified.

Situated at his table, Zim whistled, yawned and drummed his fingers on the tabletop innocently, all in quick succession. Suddenly, he leapt up, pointed at Dib and shouted as loudly as he could (blowing out a few eardrums): "HEY, EVERYBODY! DIB'S AN **_ALIEN!_**" Before Dib could get out a boggled "What?", the cafeteria was plunged into chaos.

"ALIEN!" "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" "THE WORLD IS UNDER ATTACK!" "SAVE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" "I _knew_ he was weird..." "DA ALIEN CHEESE IS HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!" "MONKEYS!" "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Children raced to evacuate, smacking into each other and getting knocked over in their panic. Dib watched them all with confusion and a degree of fear himself, but shook off the latter as he forced himself to think reasonably.

"Alien? What are they talking about - " He stopped, glimpsing something odd in a make-up mirror a very pretty boy named Steve had dropped in the frenzy. Picking it off the floor, Dib gazed in the slightly fractured looking glass - and screamed as a red-eyed, green-skinned space alien gazed back at him. The mirror flew from his hand as Dib tripped and scrambled backward. Trembling violently, he hesitantly held his hands up and realized what was so strange about them. Only three fingers came out of each hand, elongate, bony and definitely not human. He brushed a hand over his head, no scythe-like lock to greet it; only slick alien skin and two antennae, stood straight up in fright. Letting his arms go slack, he was too stunned to investigate further.

"I... _am_ an alien," he choked out. Rage quickly overcame him. "ZIM! What did you - " He was cut off as mesh netting obstructed his vision. It took him a second to realize a net had been thrown over. "Huh? What the - " He stood up, only to be yanked off his feet as the net was held in the air by an unreasonably muscular man in a secret agent/ninja/futuristic soldier kind of suit.

"The alien has been incapacitated," the man reported into a mouthpiece. "Bring in the detainment vehicle."

"How did you get here so fast?" Dib wondered perplexedly for a moment, before struggling to free himself. "WAIT! You've made a terrible mistake! I'M NOT AN ALIEN! Zim's the alien! Over there!" He pointed at the alien in question.

"NONSENSE!" Zim retorted. "I'm a frightened worm-baby like all the others! Look at me be frightened!" Zim put on a look of obviously fake terror, though it was swiftly replaced by one of sadistic amusement at Dib's plight.

"Well, that's good enough for me," the ninja agent soldier guy decided, walking toward a large, armored van that had driven in reverse through the cafeteria wall just two seconds prior.

"NO! LET ME GO! YOU'VE GOT IT ALL WRONG! ARRRRGH!" Dib tried to work his way free, but the net was unyielding, and he was carelessly tossed into the vehicle's hatchback. Groaning as his head panged with pain on impact, Dib got up and managed to get out of the net, but was too late as the van's doors slammed shut. A barred window was mounted high on the doors; jumping up, Dib latched onto the bars and pulled himself up to look through the window. "I'M NOT AN ALIEN! YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME! PLEASE!" Realizing the Pak was the cause of this, Dib let go with one hand and tried to pull it off. He stopped as he noticed Zim approaching. Clutching the bars with both newly alien hands, Dib gritted a zipperlike row of teeth and glared at Zim as hard as he could. "ZIM! You've gone too far this time, alien scum!" Zim chuckled and grinned maliciously.

"Don't you like your new body, Dib?" Zim taunted. "It's not every horrible stink-beast that gets to become an Irken. You should be honored, while you're still alive to be honored by stuff."

"I _hate_ you," Dib hissed.

"Of course you do." Zim lowered his voice. "By the way, I wouldn't remove your Pak if I were you, Dib."

"Why not?" Dib asked, clearly about to do just that.

"First, the Irken DNA is already in your system, so taking your Pak off won't change you back. Second, in addition to many other things, the Pak is an Irken's life support system. If you're separated from it for more than ten minutes, you'll die." Dib froze.

"You're lying," he said nervously. Zim shrugged.

"Go ahead. Take it off," he replied flippantly, then shot Dib another evil grin. "Good-bye, Dib... and say good-bye to your guts, while you're at it."

"What are you talking - " Dib's new organs sank as he realized what Zim meant by that. If the government took him for an alien... they'd autopsy. The van started and began to pull away. "NO! LET ME OUT OF HERE!" Dib banged against the doors in vain. "I'M NOT AN ALIEN! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Zim watched the truck drive off, immensely pleased with himself. "VICTORY FOR ZIM! WWWWAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA - " A piece of wall dropped off from the enormous hole left by the van and clocked Zim on the head. "OW!"


	3. Irony

(A/N: I have RETURNED! With another chapter. Thanks to everyone for their comments, and I hope you enjoy this.

Disclaimer: Watch the pretty coin swing to and fro, to and fro. When I snap my fingers, you believe I am not Jhonen Vasquez or Viacom. SNAP!

Chapter 3

A local news station appeared on the TV screen. "Innocent schoolchild!" the reporter demanded, thrusting the microphone in Zita's face. "When did you suspect your classmate was an alien being from ooooouuuterrr spaaaaaaaccce?"

"Weeeelll... Dib always was pretty craaazy," Zita said thoughtfully. The channel switched to another, this one showing Professor Membrane holding his head in shame, surrounded by hordes of cameras and reporters ravenous for information.

"Oh, my poor, insane alien son," he muttered softly. The next channel was showing Mysterious Mysteries' misleadingly sane-looking host staring out at the viewers somberly.

"With the verified discovery of an extraterrestrial, many people are beginning to question everything they thought they knew," the host said. "Many are asking themselves: Is there really something else out there? Are we alone? Is there more than what the human senses perceive? Are my shoes untied?" The channel after this one showed a nerdy woman with frizzy orange hair and glasses, wearing fake antennae tipped with large pom-poms.

"The aliens have come to show us the errors of our ways," she preached in a tone suggestive of someone on drugs. "If we are good, the mothership will come and take us to a place of eternal moose." The channel changed again, this time bringing on Ms. Bitters being interviewed on a talk show for nutty old crones.

"Doom... doom... doom... ALIENS!... doom... doom..." the teacher murmured with prophetic flicks of her scrawny old wrists, while the wizened talk show host seated across from her nodded sagely. The next channel shift brought on a scary monkey face, which growled at the viewers with a look of deranged anger.

"YAY!" GIR screeched from his place on the couch beside Zim, who wore a determined look as he changed the channel again, much to GIR's loudly voiced dismay.

"NO! **_NO! _**THE MONKEY! I NEED THE MONKEEEEEEEYYYY - " Fortunately, he was soon sidetracked by the discovery of a cockroach under the couch. "HI CRUNCHY PIGGY! I'MMA PLAY WITH YOUUUU!" GIR darted under the couch after the unlucky insect, leaving Zim to channel-surf in peace. Suddenly, Zim grew excited.

"A-**HA!** FINALLY!" Tossing the remote aside, Zim settled down on the couch and watched. This time, the TV showed a sea of people cheering and surrounding a stage raised high above the ground. Atop the grand stage were several scientists in long white lab coats, looking very sciencey. A humongous screen was mounted above the stage, projecting everything that happened onstage for those in the crowd that were farther back to see. The lead scientist, a man with goggles, short black hair and a deep voice, spoke into a soundpiece hidden in his collar. His voice was amplified many times for all to hear.

"Thank-you all for coming to the first ever alien autopsy," he announced; the crowd cheered louder than before. Once the cheer had died down reasonably, he went on, "As you all know, earlier today an alien was discovered in a skool district. This alien was parading as a student among children - average children! They could have been _your_ children!" The scientist pointed out at the audience dramatically; some members of the audience fainted accordingly.

"We don't know how many more of these aliens there are out there," the scientist continued. "There could be hundreds, _thousands,_ pretending to be normal human beings." The crowd gasped collectively. "They could be friendly - but why take that chance?" The crowd agreed. "We need to protect ourselves from the alien menace!" The crowd cheered. "Knowledge is power!" More cheering. "That is why President Man has given us permission to dissect the alien specimen and find out all we can! To know!" The crowd exploded in cheers as a trapdoor in the stage slid open, and an operating table rose out of the floor. Strapped to it was a struggling green space alien in a black trenchcoat.

"Wait! You've made a mistake! I'm not the alien, Zim is!" Dib yelled. The crowd oohed in awed horror, completely oblivious to his pleas.

"Look at it!" "It's hideous!" "Those eyes... red as cranberry sauce!" "It's got dem an-tenn-ay things!" "And that head!" "Sweet salami, it's HUGE!"

"I'm not an alien - AND MY HEAD ISN'T THAT BIG!" Dib screamed. He paused as the head scientist held high a scalpel.

"Let the alien autopsy - BEGIN!" The crowd cheered yet again until the scientist added, "After these messages!" Back in Zim's base, the TV cut to commercials. GIR tromped out of the kitchen with a container of Irken candy and hopped on the couch.

"I love this shoooow," GIR sighed happily, in retarded robot nirvana as he watched the ad for zit creme, and the cockroach from earlier crawled out of his head to watch it too. Zim chuckled sinisterly.

"This is PERFECT!" Zim grinned evilly. "Soon, the Dib-beast will be cut open in front of all of Earth, suffering the same fate he promised ME time and time again! The irony is delicious! Mwahahahha..." Zim helped himself to a handful of Irken candy, still wearing an evil smile as he chewed. Some more gloating and chewing went by as the ads showed, and finally the live program came back on. Zim relished the moment as Dib's terrified visage appeared onscreen, the scientist holding the scalpel dangerously close to his body (but taking his time, just to improve the dramatic tension).

"Ah, Dib, destroyed by his own kind," Zim mused, then chuckled again. "I can't wait to see the look on his face when his own squeedly-spooch falls out of him! HAHAAHAHAAHAAA - "

"AAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Dib's scream interrupted Zim's laughter. The scientist had made the first incision, leaving a long gash through the shirt and into the skin. Though not fatal, the cut was evidently painful.

"Hmmm... the blade's too blunt," the scientist noted, running a gloved finger over the scalpel's blade gingerly, then shrugged. "Oh well." Totally unconcerned, the scientist made another incision; Dib screamed again.

"Ha... hehehe..." Zim didn't seem so thrilled now. A third scream followed shortly, the scientist adding casually, "Ho-hum, this sure is a dull blade, isn't it? Kinda rusty, too." All traces of sadistic glee were now gone from Zim's face.

"He's bleedin'!" GIR stated non-comprehensively.

"Yes... yes, he is," Zim said uneasily.

---

"Please... please, STOP!" Dib begged. "I'M NOT AN ALIEN! AAAAARRRGH!"

"About twelve or fifteen more incisions and we should start seeing organs, or something," the scientist informed those around him jovially. Dib paled.

"Why are you doing this? Why won't you listen to me?" Dib asked quietly, giving up. The cheers of the crowd echoed in his ears... or whatever Irkens heard with. So this was how it was going to end - slowly, painfully, his demise cheered for by all humanity? His own species, that he'd determined to protect. So this was how it would end. Dib closed his eyes in defeat.

Then opened them as the cheers turned to panicked shrieks. People dived to get out of the way of an oncoming spacecraft, round, fuchsia and flying way too low to the ground. Rising up enough to scale the stage, the ship barreled forward without any regard for the scientists, who had to scramble out of the way to avoid being smashed like bugs against the windshield. Headed straight for Dib, it stopped just inches away from the operating table. Dib watched as the domed windshield slid open, revealing Zim and his robotic minion in the cockpit.

"_Zim?_" Dib cried, disbelieving. "What are you - "

"GIR, free the Dib while I drive off the stink-beasts!" Zim barked. GIR's cyan parts burned red obediently as he hopped out of the cockpit and landed on Dib, turned cyan again and smiling inanely in Dib's face.

"Hi big-head boy!" GIR beamed.

"Wha - huh?" Dib uttered. Humans screeched and ran for their lives as Zim shot lasers at them, setting pants afire and laughing all the while. Meanwhile, GIR ripped the binding straps off Dib and held him up with uncanny strength for such a small thing, waiting until Zim drove the ship back again and tossing Dib into the cockpit headfirst, then jumped in after. The windshield closed back up, and after shooting at a few more humans, Zim piloted the ship skyward at a sharp 90-degree angle and at a ridiculously high speed. In a matter of seconds, the ship was floating just above Earth's gravitational pull.

"PITIFUL, INFERIOR HUUUUMANS! WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!" Zim laughed hysterically, Dib seated upside-down just beside him while GIR floated through the air carelessly. "No one can stand before the might of ZIM! Nooooo ooooone." Still extremely confused, Dib managed to turn himself rightside-up in his seat, wincing momentarily at the reawakened pain in his middle; Irken physiology had fortunately stopped the bleeding, but the hurt remained.

"Why did you do that?" Dib cried. Zim looked at him with smug self-satisfaction.

"I, the almighty ZIM, have saved you from the FILTHY humans and a HORRIBLE fate, but NO NEED TO THANK ME!" Zim boasted modestly. (Fear the oxymoron!)

"THANK YOU? YOU'RE THE REASON THEY THOUGHT I WAS AN ALIEN!" Forgetting his wound, Dib fixed Zim with a look of such withering anger that even Zim was compelled to shrink in his seat. "Thanks to YOU, ZIM, I almost DIED! Thanks to YOU, all of humanity thought I was the alien bent on destroying humanity! Thanks to YOU, I AM an alien! Thanks to you, my life is ruined. Thanks to you, I lost... I lost..." Trailing off, Dib looked away from Zim, staring instead at the Earth in front of them.

"Aw, who am I kidding," Dib sighed at last, sinking down in his seat and ignoring the pain in his abdomen, still looking at the Earth. "I didn't have much of a life, anyway. Gaz hates me, Dad couldn't care less that I even exist, the Swollen Eyeball thinks I'm a lunatic, the kids at skool say I'm crazy, and nobody _EVER_ appreciates what I do to keep the Earth safe." Dib sighed again; his shiny red eyes, very unlike human eyes, glistened with tears. "It's a beautiful planet. Too bad humanity's just a bunch of jerks." A heavy silence permeated the air for a short while after that, broken only by GIR's giddy, nonsensical voice in the background. Zim, who had been watching Dib in quiet pondering, turned toward the control panel now.

"Wow, that was dramatic. Time to return to the base." So saying, Zim pressed a button and the ship shot back down to Earth.


	4. Glaring Red Eyes

(A/N: I gotta say, I am THRILLED with all these reviews. Thanks to all of you! I'm afraid I've never been one for lengthy author's notes, so, read on and have fun!

Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING! QUICKLY, TO THE LIFEBOAT! Jhonen Vasquez owns Invader Zim and then some. Oh yeah, and so does Viacom.)

Chapter Four

Professor Membrane flopped on the couch as soon as he got home, exhausted after a day of being hounded by reporters. They'd be hounding him still, but the cyborg kittens guarding the house had chased off/incinerated any reporters foolish enough to follow the Professor home. Mostly absorbed in her Gameslave 2, Gaz was subconsciously aware of her Father's presence on the couch next to her, and this brightened her mood a little.

Membrane turned on the TV; seeing all channels relayed a replay of Dib being taken away by an alien spacecraft, he turned it back off. "Daughter... what has your brother done _now_?" he said wearily.

"What? Oh... you mean the alien thing?" Gaz replied, shooting virtual enemies. "I guess he finally got on Zim's really bad side..."

"What about the foreign child?" Membrane wondered, looking down at his small daughter questioningly. This was sounding like an all-too-rare father-daughter conversation. Gaz decided this seldom occasion called for turning off her game and giving her father her full attention.

"You're not really that oblivious, are you?" Gaz asked, giving Membrane an amber-eyed stare. The following oblivious silence answered her question. "Zim's an alien. Doyy." Professor Membrane leapt to his feet in a sudden "EUREKA!" movement.

"That's it! Your brother's insanity must have finally CONSUMED him, transforming him into a physical amalgamation of his irrational obsessions! This calls for SCIENCE!" Scientific vigor renewed, Membrane sprinted to his lab and immediately began work on something sciencey. Gaz sighed and switched the Gameslave back on; looked like the father-daughter moment was over.

---

"UGH!" Dib grunted as the ship slammed to a stop on the landing port in Zim's attic, which the house's roof was quick to close over, shrouding it in darkness. The force of the landing caused Dib to slam into the floor, wound-first. Dib groaned and got to his knees as the ship's windshield slid back and Zim and GIR jumped out. Climbing out after them cautiously, Dib shot Zim a suspicious glare.

"Why did you take me here?" he demanded. "Are you going to torture me yourself?"

"NONSENSE!" Zim dismissed. "You're still weak. I'll give you a chance to heal... maybe THEN I'll DESTROY you. Now come - the base awaits!"

"Yeah right, ZIM. As if I'd follow you."

Zim was caught off guard by the sight of Dib's red eyes flashing brilliantly out of the dark to meet his own. Catching himself, Zim smiled. "Oh, you'll follow me, Dib. The humans are after your blood, and you're injured - you don't have anywhere else to go." Again, Zim was held by the sight of those eyes glimmering at him vehemently.

"I'm not going," Dib hissed, still unmoving.

"You don't have a CHOICE!" Zim growled, stamping a foot irritably. "Now COME! ZIM COMMANDS YOU!" No response; just more of that unsettling glaring. "Grrrr - COME ON!"

"Come on big-head boy!" GIR offered, pulling a rubber pig out of his head and squeaking it invitingly. "If you come you can play with PIGGY! PIIIIIIGGYYYYYYYY!" More glaring.

"Nevermind, GIR," Zim muttered, meeting Dib's gaze with equal ferocity as he backed toward the elevator. "The Dib is being STUPID right now. We'll give him some time to come to his senses."

"Okiedokie!" GIR hopped onto the elevator alongside Zim, squeaking the rubber piggy happily. The elevator lowered down to the next floor. Dib's glinting red eyes watched Zim and GIR descend until they vanished from sight.

---

Zim was in foul sorts as he marched on the elevator into the living room of the base, and so internally preoccupied he didn't even flinch when GIR made a break for the couch and switched on "The Scary Monkey Show" in record time.

"YAAYYY MONKEYYY!" GIR screeched, waving his little metal pincers in the air excitedly. Interpreting this as GIR's way of saying "please launch into an aimless rant", Zim obliged.

"RrrrAGH! The DIB is even STUPIDER than I thought!" Zim complained. "I give him the honor of being an Irken, go out of my way to rescue him from the ffffFILTHY humans, and offer to let him stay here until he's healed! He dares refuse the hospitality of ZIIIIIIIIM?"

"Aw, you like big-head boy!" GIR chirruped, eyes still glued to the screen... also, at some point, he'd put on the dog suit.

"I don't LIKE him, GIR!" Zim snapped, glaring at his robot. "I turned him into an Irken BECAUSE I didn't like him!" Zim pondered. "But I couldn't watch those despicable hhhhuumans disassemble a fellow Irken before my eyes! But - Dib's not an Irken - I mean he is - but he isn't - he - I - well - ZIM - ARGH! Irken or not, Dib's humongous head STILL give me a humongous headache!"

Internally feuding, Zim headed for the toilet entrance to the base's lower level and flushed himself down... maybe some cruel and unusual alien experimentation on the bionic chickens would help him think better.

---

Alone in the dark now, Dib slid down into a sitting position and crunched his knees up against his head, enduring the burst of pain in his middle as he wrapped his arms around his knees and began to sob. The day had happened so quickly, and so much had happened IN it, that was it only now beginning to sink in. In one day, he'd lost everything. The Swollen Eyeball, Dad, Gaz, skool, his humanity... Images of everything was gone to him in this form flashed through his mind. Giving up, Dib let his arms slide off his knees and fell on his back, looking up at the dark ceiling. Only a dim, broken circle of light was let in by the sole window.

Everything about this body felt strange; his antannae brushing the floor, his eyes adjusting in the dark and seeing details in things he could never have seen with human eyes. His skin, smooth, fine and cool, without the grease and heat of human flesh. His Pak, digging into his back and arching his strangely flexible spine upward. His organs, beating in him, unknown to him - he shuddered at the thought that they would have been cut out while he was still alive. And yet, that was the same fate he'd had in store for Zim - that gave him pause.

His pause was put on pause when something came up from the elevator. Again, gleaming red eyes met.

"What do you want?" Dib inquired coldly, propping himself up on his elbows (even those felt strange) in a semi-sitting position. Zim, who had been unable to concentrate on his work, stared back impertinently.

"I don't have to answer to you, Dib," Zim responded coolly, marching over to where Dib sat and sitting beside him. Dib looked at him in disgust and scooted an inch away. Zim grinned slightly at his discomfort.

"I don't want you here," Dib muttered.

"I know you don't."

Silence.

"Well?" Dib prompted.

"Hm?" Zim raised a brow questioningly.

"Aren't you going to start laughing and saying 'PITIFUL HUMAN, ZIM HAS WON'?" Dib asked, doing a dead-on imitation of Zim.

"ZIM SOUNDS NOTHING LIKE THAT! And you're not human anymore."

"Just had to rub it in, didn't you?" Dib sighed.

"You say that as if it's a _bad_ thing," Zim accused.

"It is. I'm trying to save humanity from the aliens, which is a little hard to do when I am an alien, Zim," Dib said bitterly, then brought a hand to his forehead. "Ugh - why am I even talking to you? You're the reason I'm like this, you stupid alien!"

"Hehe... yeah, I am, aren't I?" Zim smiled absentmindedly. Dib frowned deeply at him.

"You're not paying attention to me." Dib studied Zim's face with the careful precision he'd honed all that time watching Zim in skool. "What are you thinking about?"

"None of your business," muttered Zim, his upper teeth sticking out thoughtfully. Dib couldn't help but smile himself at the ridiculous expression; did Zim even realize he did that? Something occurred to him suddenly.

"Hey... you haven't called me 'Dib-stink' or 'Dib-beast' or 'stink-beast' once during this entire conversation!" Dib cried. "You usually insult me at least once, sometimes three times in the same sentence."

"Eh?" Zim pretended he hadn't heard, but Dib _knew_ he had.

"You're hiding something from me, _Zim._ What is it?" Dib interrogated.

"I'm not hiding anything... Dib-beast," Zim forced. Dib glowered at him, then looked ahead. This entire time, both had been avoiding each other's gazes as a rule by looking out the window out at the stars.

"The laser weasels beckon!" Zim announced suddenly, hopping to his feet and breaking for the elevator, which swiftly descended with him on it. Dib watched him go, confused, intrigued and irritated at once. Stupid alien scum...

---

Zim was panting heavily, eyes bugging as he got off the elevator.

"What is WRONG with me!" Zim asked no one.

"Shhh! This is the good part," GIR whispered, watching the ever-growling monkey head on the TV screen contently. The cockroach from a while back popped out of his head, squirmed past the dog suit's zipper and fed from the slushyed-over straw of GIR's SuckMonkey. Neither noticed as Zim ran past them and zipped down the garbage chute, headed for the base lab to run some self-analysis tests.

"I love this show," GIR told the cockroach, who agreed heartily. And somewhere, the abandoned rubber piggy wept.


	5. Testy

(A/N: I wrote most of this chapter pretty quickly, but then got stuck on the last few sentences for the longest time. Fortunately, a Zim-watching marathon cleared that up. ANYWAY! I can't believe it! My reviews have more than doubled with this last chapter! INCREDIBLE! At the bottom of the chapter I respond to some of the reviews, since you people deserve that much. Also, enjoy the chapter! Not much, but now that I'm in my groove more should be coming soon.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN INVADER ZIM! Why do I not own Invader Zim? Whyyyyy... )

Chapter Five

Dib stared at the elevator platform hesitantly. He didn't want to give Zim the satisfaction of obeying his orders... but he was getting bored up here. He'd assumed he would fall asleep here, but the sun had risen and he didn't feel tired in the least (perhaps it was the events of the previous day making him sleepless, but he suspected Irkens just didn't sleep). Dib sighed and stepped onto the elevator, pondering, as it lowered, the irony that not long ago he'd risked his neck time and again to break into Zim's base, whereas now that it was being offered to him, he was reluctant to visit.

He'd just stepped off the elevator when -

"WAFFLES!" screamed the plate of waffles as it shoved itself in his face. Dib stumbled backward, quickly realizing that Zim's dog-suited robot had pushed the waffles toward him and screamed, not the waffles themselves.

"Eat the waffles, big-head boy!" GIR insisted, walking toward him as he backed away cautiously. "They're gooood for youuuuuu." Having seen Zim sizzle and burn at the touch of human food before, the now-Irken Dib doubted that very much.

"No, really... that's okay," Dib pleaded as GIR came closer and closer with the buttery pile of alien toxins. "I'm not hungry... GIR, seriously!" Backed up against a wall now, Dib watched in terror as some syrup slopped off the plate and puddled on the floor dangerously close to him. Acting on sheer survival instinct, he kicked the plate up and away.

Zim rose up out of the trash lift just in time to get smacked with the airborne plate. Zim's eye twitched, the plate like a hat on his head, syrup running down his face and causing the skin to smoke slightly. Fortunately, he was practically immune to waffles by now.

"I want a waffle-hat," GIR mused. Zim scowled and slapped the waffles off his head, antennae springing straight up and dripping syrup. Dib tried not to laugh at the sight.

"Well, I see you've finally heeded my AMAZING advice," Zim noted, marching out of the kitchen toward them. "I need you in the lower base though, so I can run some tests on - "

"Fat chance, Zim. I came down because I was sick of your attic," Dib retorted. "I'm not going any farther."

"Eh, okay." To his surprise, Zim only shrugged, then grinned evilly. "COMPUTER! Grab Dib and make sure he can't escape!"

Dib flashed an angry glare Zim's way and braced himself. Nothing happened. Zim stuck his bottom teeth out and tapped a foot irritably.

"COMPUTER!"

"What nooooowwwww?" the house computer groaned.

"I _said,_ grab Dib and - "

"Not detecting the Dib within the premesis," the computer reported, cutting Zim off. Zim stared at a spot on the ceiling (Dib guessed a security camera of some sort) incredulously.

"He's right THERE!" Zim cried, pointing at Dib, who was indeed, right there.

"Unknown Irken is detected," the computer replied, scanning the DNA signature of the trenchcoated creature Zim pointed at. "The Dib is not."

"Unknown Ir - GRRR! YOU STUPID COMPUTER! That IS the Dib!" Zim snapped. "Now grab him!"

"The Dib has verified human DNA structure. Unknown Irken has verified Irken - "

"I KNOW THAT!" As Zim struggled to explain Dib's changed species to the computer, Dib headed for the door. Maybe it was better to take his chances with the outside world than in here with Zim.

No sooner had he opened the door, than a wind-blown piece of paper smacked him in the face. Dib pulled it off and looked at it. On it was a large picture of himself strapped to an operating table. Shivering at the memories of what happened just yesterday and touching the cut in his middle tenderly at the thought, Dib read the text below the picture: "HORRIBLE ALIEN MONSTER. WANTED DEAD, ALIVE, OR DISMEMBERED AND ORGANIZED IN LITTLE LABELED JARS. REWARD THREE BEEJILLION DOLLARS." Not bothering to read the description, Dib dropped it in horror and stumbled back inside, slamming the door. On second thought, maybe Zim's place wasn't so bad after all.

Inside, Zim was still arguing with the computer. Dib quirked an eyebrow at Zim and smiled slightly. For an evil space alien bent on world conquest, he was sure childish.

"What kind of 'tests'?" Dib asked. Zim broke from his quarrel with the computer and looked at Dib wonderingly, his worm-like tongue still sticking out (Dib laughed inside).

_Strange,_ Zim thought. Dib was still obviously Dib - same large head and suspicious expression. His glasses had fallen off at some point (though with superior Irken vision, he no longer needed them) but his rounded eyes were as large as the lenses had been. Even his antennae seemed to arch up similarly to the way his scythe-shaped cowlick had. _He's still the same stupid worm-baby. Arrgh, why does he stare at Zim so? With those stupid, big, shiny, red eyes... so red and shiny are they..._

"Zim? What kind of tests?" Dib repeated impatiently.

"Hm?" Zim's antennae, which had been sloping peculiarly, perked up suddenly. "Oh, eh... none of your business, Dib! Trust that they are sufficiently above your level of comprehension!"

"And you say _I_ have a big head..."

"What?"

"Nevermind." Dib studied Zim carefully. "I'm not saying I'll let you, but if you're going to be running any tests on me, I think I have a right to know what they are."

"I'm letting you stay here, aren't I?" Zim shot back. "I, ZIM, have taken you in when your own world has cast you out! The generosity of Zim is TRULY aSTOUNDing!" Dib's stare was unwavering. "...Fine. I just want to make sure there weren't any flaws in your transformation and check on how your cut is healing."

"Oh." Dib wasn't expecting that. "That's... actually kind of nice of you."

"See? You should never have doubted me. Now COME!" He started toward the trash chute, but Dib didn't budge.

"I'm not going to trust you that easily," Dib snorted, antennae lowered distrustfully. Zim stared at him for a while.

"Computer!" he barked. "Capture the 'Unknown Irken'!"

"Huh?" Dib said, eyes going wide as pipelike appendages descended from the ceiling and wound around him tightly, suspending him a foot off the ground as he tried in vain to wriggle free. "AUGH! YOU JERK, ZIM!"

"Yes, yes. To the containment chamber with him!" Zim commanded. Dib shrieked as the pipe-things retracted suddenly into the ceiling with him. He found himself being shot through a chute of some sort - then, with a splash, dispensed him into the amber amniotic fluid of a containment chamber, the passageway from the chute closed over by a metal panel.

"Great," Dib burbled through the fluid (which was actually sort of soothing against his open wound). From the looks of it, he had ended up in the base's lower levels after all. He could see Zim coming down on an elevator in a far wall now. Getting off, Zim walked over to the containment chamber and grinned at the other Irken inside nastily, his face warped by the chamber's clear, curved surface.

"Hello, Dib," he sneered, then pressed something on the containment chamber's mechanical base. Before Dib could even form a proper retort, the amniotic fluid began to drain from the containment chamber, lowering him to the bottom of the canister gradually. When the liquid had fully drained, the chamber's clear tube slid up and open. Hopping down to the floor and squeezing some fluid out of his trenchcoat, Dib stared at Zim suspiciously.

"If you're wondering why I'm letting you free in the base, it's because you no longer pose a threat to me," Zim informed, looking at Dib confidently. "Sad, isn't it? Now hold still."

"I'm not holding still for - OW!" Dib cried at Zim seized one of his antennae and yanked it. This new kind of pain incapacitated Dib temporarily, allowing Zim to examine the gaping wound running lengthwise down his torso.

"Hmm... it's worse than I thought," Zim determined, releasing Dib's antenna at last. "Still, if you aren't foolish enough to EXERT yourself unnecessarily, your Pak's nanites should patch it up in a few days."

Still rubbing his sore antenna, Dib eyed Zim warily. "So, what about the other test?" He had a sudden, terrifying mental image of Zim wielding a giant hypodermic needle.

"The computer made a record of your status while you were in the containment chamber," Zim replied. "It hasn't alerted me of any abnormalities."

"Oh," Dib said, partly relieved at the news, partly surprised that Zim hadn't slipped a cheap shot at his head in there somewhere. "Um, okay... is that it?"

"Mhm, pretty much," Zim nodded. "SO BE GONE WITH YOU!" As Dib looked at Zim in confusion, more pipes dropped out of the ceiling and constricted him.

"Ergh! Not aGAAAIIIIIN," he complained as they reeled him up to the ground floor. Zim watched him go with a slight smile, then turned and walked off. He still had work to do.

---

(In response to some of my fantastic reviewers:

Senri: WOW! Thanks for reviewing, I loved your Souvenirs fic! I'm glad you like Alienated, I try my best.

SavPixie: Dib and Zim are about the same height. In some fanfics Dib is taller, mostly because he's gotten older.

zimaddiction(nice nickname by the way): But of course he's gay! His inflatable model of Tallest Spork can attest to that, and anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about should read the script for the unmade episode "The Trial".

Krimzon: Yay, you reviewed! I'm glad you like it so much! I got an account on the site you suggested and started to post this, but I don't see any ratings lower than R. I considered posting it as R, but it isn't, and I didn't know if I should.

Keep up the good work, people!)


	6. Can't Touch That Dial

(A/N: Man... sorry about putting you guys on hold for so long. College started up again, and the sudden pressure to study launched me into a quagmire of blocked writerness. I tried writing anyway, the results were disastrous and discouraged me from doing anymore until recently, when I deleted a large chunk of what I had created and wrote it anew. I like this better. Hope you do too.

Disclaimer: STILL I do not own! I vy and I vy and I vy some more for ownership of Invader Zim, but Viacom will not give it to me! NERRRRRRR! )

* * *

Chapter Six

"AAARRGH! FOOOOOOOLISH SHIP! YOU DARE RESIST ZIM'S ATTEMPTS TO REPAIR YOUR INFERIOR METAL HIDE? BE FIXED!" Zim ranted, running a sparking, penlike extension from his Pak over the Voot runner's cracked carapace. Part of it caved in despite his efforts. "AGH!"

"I told you to take the spare cruiser," the computer said dryly. Zim's penlike tool was attached to his Pak by a cord; he let the Pak reel it in by that cord and faced a nearby monitor angrily.

"SILENCE! DO NOT BACKSASS YOUR MASTER!" he snapped irritably. "And I don't like the spare... too clunky."

"Better clunky than broken," the computer returned. "I told you the Voot wasn't repaired, but you took it anyway, and now it's even worse."

"That's why I'm FIXing it," Zim grumbled, turning back toward the ship and taking in the damage with a growl.

"You know, 'Master', I'm more than capable of repairing it myself. If you would just turn the ship over to the automatic repairs system - "

"You take too long!" Zim retorted, sliding on a pair of goggles and bringing out of his Pak a tool shaped somewhat like a pair of forceps, each forked end equipped with so many tools it was like a highly advanced jack knife. "My superior brain is infinitely more capable of repairing the ship quickly and efficiently... besides, I've been meaning to upgrade it, anyway."

"Whatever," the computer sighed. "I don't understand why you went out of your way to save this Dib kid. I thought you hated him."

"I DO!" Zim cried. "I mean - eh..." A high-pitched alarm began to blare simultaneously from multiple sources all over the base. "EH?"

"Unauthorized accessor to the 'bionic-chicken-making room of DOOM'," the computer alerted, quoting Zim's name for the sector ad verbatim.

"An inTRUDER!" Zim clarified, throwing off the goggles as his Pak resorbed the jack knife-forceps thingy and bolting to the aforementioned sector. "But who?"

The small Irken darted through machine-lined halls, ducked under hanging cables, and battled a one-eyed amoeba monster that had escaped its tank until he at last arrived at the bionic-chicken-making room of DOOM. Wrenching a mechanical part from its machine base with a tug, Zim tossed said part at the amoeba monster. The part sank into the monster's gelatinous bulk and unleashed a dangerous wave of electricity. The electrocuted amoeba groaned and sank away submissively. Smiling triumphantly, Zim jerked his foot free of a sticky pile of amoeba jelly, reclaimed his boot and entered the chicken sector.

Zim's eyes and antennae swept the area suspiciously upon entry. It was a small space, walls and standing bookcase-like units lined with chickens kept in clear, rounded jars. Each poultry had had at least one part removed and replaced with a mechanical part, as useful as a laser cannon wing or as ridiculous as a kitchen mixer for an eye. The birds were varying ranges of cyborgs, some only partially bionic, others almost entirely robotic but for the stray feather. Zim crept through row after row of altered barnyard variety warily, his antennae twitching at the mechanized squawks, crows and clucks, pleading for freedom from this horrendous place or from ever more torturous life.

Suddenly, a blue light shining through some of the chicken jars caught his attention. Eyes narrowing, Zim hopped up onto the third shelf of the chicken case facing the light source, squeezing through an empty space between the jars and falling to the floor on the opposite side. Zim groaned softly at the rough landing and cracked an eye open at the figure sitting in front of him.

"YOU!" Zim cried accusatorily, leaping to his feet and pointing dramatically. The blue light was generated by a laptop, which was plugged into a nearby wall computer that monitored the chickens' statuses. Seated on the floor before it, Dib quirked an antenna and a brow in unison and turned his head to look at Zim.

"I can't believe you!" Zim hissed. "I give my hospitality, A ROOF OVER YOUR GIGANTIC HEAD" - Zim threw his arms up in a wide gesture - "and THIS is how you repay Zim's kindness? By breaking into my base computer and spying on my secret chicken technology?"

"I thought I 'no longer pose a threat' to you," Dib retorted.

"I - YOU DON'T! You're just a huge ANNOYANCE!" Zim grabbed Dib by his antennae and hauled him to his feet, then shoved him ahead. "Now GET OUT OF MY BIONIC CHICKEN ROOM before you BREAK something!"

"Fine." Dib glared at Zim over his shoulder. "I'm _leaving!_ But remember this, Zim: I've thwarted your plans before OUTSIDE your base. Now that I'm in it, you can plot and plot against Earth all you like, but I'll stop you before you even have a chance to unleash whatever you cook up. I don't even care what happens to Earth anymore - I'll do it to spite _you_." With that, he left the chicken quadrant, leaving Zim momentarily silent, though he was quick to make up for it.

"THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK, DIB! JUST TRY TO STOP ME! YOU MAY BE AN IRKEN, BUT YOU'RE STILL INFERIOR!" Zim gritted his teeth. "Stupid Dib. I don't have to worry about what _he_ does... he's just another experiment to me now. YOU HEAR THAT DIB? YOU'RE _MY _PROPERTY!" And with that, he stomped out via the exit opposite the one Dib had used.

* * *

The cut was gone, leaving only the long tear running through the bland gray "smiley" on Dib's T-shirt as a reminder. Well, mostly gone; the skin was healed over, but a dull ache in his abdomen indicated there was still some damage left deeper inside. Dib sighed and folded both hands over his middle, remote control in one, as he settled down in the couch and continued to watch the "Mysterious Mysteries" rerun. A marathon had started at 3 AM, and he'd been watching it for hours since, despite having seen each episode at its premier. Except for the more recent one covering his own live dissection, of course; thankfully, that one had ended and the Chickenfoot one was on in its place. 

"Can we watch the Scary Monkey Show?" GIR asked, popping up right in front of Dib's face and interrupting the TV's drone.

"No," Dib answered despondently, leaning to the side to view the screen past GIR's head. Twelve seconds passed.

"Now?"

"No."

Eight second pause.

"Now?"

"NO."

Five seconds.

"How about now?" Dib's eye twitched.

"For the three hundred, ninety-third time..." Before he could finish, the sound of the pseudo toilet flushing caught his attention. Sure enough, Zim stepped out of the bowl. Wig and contacts in place, he proceeded to leave the kitchen and enter the living room, headed for the door.

"Where are _you_ going?" Dib inquired coldly as Zim neared the couch.

"To school," Zim replied, "not that it's any of _your_ business." He smirked. "Ironic, isn't it? Why, I fit in with the stink-pigs better than you do now. I guess you could say, I'm more" - he fought back a nauseous twitch at the thought, keeping the smirk - "_human._" Anger sparked, Dib leapt down from the couch and stood directly in front of Zim, blocking his path to the door and glared at him as darkly as he could. Zim returned the glare with the same intensity. Approximately the same height, the Irkens squared off equally, neither winning, neither losing.

"What are you going to do, Dib?" Zim said finally. Dib, had no answer; reluctantly, he stepped aside. Zim grinned wickedly at his adversary as he passed, relishing; he'd won.

Dib stood completely still as Zim shut the door behind him, tense with restrained fury. At precisely the wrong moment, GIR piped, "Can I watch the Scary Monkey - " Dib grabbed the remote and threw it at GIR's head as hard as he could, the remote hitting its target straight-on with a resounding metallic _CLANG_. Oblivious, GIR picked up the remote and switched to his desired channel, cheering at the monkey's rabid visage as Dib stormed off.

* * *

"So an ALIEN in OUR class? WHO'DA THUNK IT?" 

"I know! I mean really... but then, it like, _was_ DIB."

"Hehe... yeah."

Zim winced and did his best to ignore the irritating pig-squabble of the students behind him. School had resumed almost instantly, unfortunately, and the media had moved on to the next biggest story - genetically engineered penguins. He was already beginning to wish he'd stayed home, though his mission pressed him to attend; these horrible smellies were wearing him down to the last nerve already. And something about Dib's absence made it all the worse - he found himself glancing at the empty seat on the far side of the room periodically, expecting a glare back. He kept reminding himself, _The Dib is at the base now, remember? The stink-beast has been conquered... he's practically a slave now._ But something about that seemed wrong - for one, if he was a slave, Dib was certainly the most impertinent, disobedient slave there had ever been. For another, the thought of no more feuding with said stink-beast left him with an empty feeling. Zim shuddered and tried to focus on what that HORRIBLE human excuse for an instructor was saying now.

"...in a fit of deranged madness, van Gogh lopped off his own ear and sent it to his former lover. Shortly after, he went to bed and stayed there until he DIED a fitful, lonesome death. And so class, this covers why paint flakes are NOT a nutritious part of your daily breakfast. Any questions?"

"Inferior human hearing organs," Zim muttered to himself. "Dib should be THRILLED with his obviously more efficient Irken body..."

"MS. BITTERS!" some baldish child screeched, fool enough to take the wizened teacher up on her last sentence. His movements were difficult and jerky, as though he'd had a stroke recently (a lot of children moved like that in this skool, actually). "IF DIB WAS A, A A A ALI**EN**, THEN DOESN'T THAT MEAN THERE MIGHT BE **MORE** ALIEEEENS?"

"While I fail to see how this relates to mentally imbalanced artists, **Melvin**, yes. Yes, there probably are," Ms. Bitters verified.

"Why don't we go find them and PUNCH them until they're gooey... green stuff," a squat orange-haired boy named Chunk suggested, emphasizing the word PUNCH by slamming his fist into his waiting palm.

"FOOLS! You think you can merely PUNCH the Irken Armada into submission?" Zim snapped, leaping atop his desk, the better to shout maniacally at the entire classroom. "Don't get all cocky because you managed to capture one of us temporarily! I intended for it to happen... Your race is too incompetent to have managed it on its own. WE WILL RULE YOU!" Two metal claws shot out of the floor and clamped onto his arms at that instant.

Zim cried out in shock, fighting his restraints as a screen lowered from the ceiling, bearing a familiar face.

"No," the onscreen Professor Membrane replied, his normally jovial tone cold. "I don't think you will."

* * *

Next update should come soon enough, if you enjoyed this one. NOW FOR READER REPLIES! 

Castoro Charo: But I AM still working on it! I AM! I SWEAR IT!

shears: Dib hasn't demanded to be changed back because he's at a low point where he just resents everything around him, humans especially, so much so that he really has no desire to rejoin the ranks of humanity at this point. Hope that cleared that up!

And to everyone who left obscenely complimentary reviews: THANK-YOU! Your devotion fuels me! I WILL NOW RULE THE WOOOeeeerrrr proceed to write more. Yeah, that. Keep it up!)


	7. Familial Dysfunction

(A/N: Wow, I can't believe I just wrote this all in one night! It's one of my longer chapters, to boot. Hope this quick update makes up for the long hiatus. Also, I tried not to make Membrane out of character, but since the only times you really see him on the show are for short, humorous gags it's difficult to write him in long, semi-serious moments.

Disclaimer: I own only my zits. I should name one "Pustulio".)

* * *

Chapter Seven

"Dib's parent?" Zim realized, eyeing the screen as it swiveled to get a better view of him. "What are - " He was cut off as a strong electric shock arced through the robotic arms and reached him. He felt blinding pain as the electricity coursed through his body, gritting his teeth and screaming as he convulsed. Then it all went black.

"REACTIVATE." Another, smaller shock, this one originating from his Pak, brought Zim to. Zim groaned and cracked his eyes open, then opened them wide and lifted his head, taking in his sterile surroundings. He was in some sort of Earthenoid laboratory, primitive by Irken standards, but advanced by its own. Painful metal restraints dug into his limbs and torso, holding him seven feet off the ground, and many strange, sharp instruments pointed at his head, hypodermic needles among them. After noting all this with great unease, Zim's eyes settled on Professor Membrane, standing in person just up ahead. Zim's antennae flattened against his head angrily.

"YOU! You have no business keeping me here!" Zim barked, wriggling to free himself, then thinking better of it as that put his head closer to the sharp instruments. "What's going on?"

"Well, let's see," Membrane said thoughtfully. "You kidnapped my son, endangered his life, and transformed him into an alien. Also, I suspect you're a malevolent extraterrestrial conspiring to take over my planet."

"Eh, NONSENSE! I'm a perfectly normal human - " Wait... he didn't feel his contacts or wig. Zim grinned sheepishly. "Eh heh... I... have a skin condition and pink-eye?"

"Hahaha..." Professor Membrane shook his head and brought a small remote control out of one of his lab coat pockets, then proceeded to press a red button in the center.

"What are you doing with AAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGH!" Zim shrieked as another jolt of electricity ran through him, then slumped and groaned softly.

"Fascinating," Membrane remarked, observing Zim's smoking form. "A real alien lifeform. My insane son was right after all." When the pain was a little less overwhelmingly excruciating, Zim lifted his head and glared at the Professor.

"How did you see through my inGEEEENIOUS disguise?" he demanded, voice hoarse. "You were just as IGNORANT as the other stink-pigs before!"

Membrane shrugged. "I suspected something was amiss, but my son tends to... overreact. I had more important things to concentrate on than another of his paranoid delusions, which I just assumed his alien claims were. Like when he thought there was a Bigfoot in the garage, or a ghost in the toilet.

"And _then_ he became an alien and the government kidnapped him. Even then, I didn't make the connection. My daughter is more sensible than her brother, and she _insisted _you were behind it. Children will be children, I told myself, and tried to put it out of mind... but in the end, I thought, what the heck? So, I installed some of my technology in your classroom and watched you through a hidden camera. To my surprise, you practically gave yourself away! It was amazing your true identity _hadn't_ been revealed yet!" Membrane sighed and shook his head. "A shame I didn't believe my son until it was too late."

"You saw through my disguise. Good for you," Zim said sarcastically. "But seeing as how I know something about you too, Membrane-_stink_, why the sudden concern? You never cared about Dib before." This last sentence was punctuated by another scream as Membrane hit the shock button again.

"I am a very busy man," Membrane replied coldly. "Every day, the fate of the Earth rests on _my_ shoulders. I don't have time to take care of my children when I'm working to make the world _safe_ for them!" At this point, Zim could only groan in response, so Membrane went on, his voice darkening forebodingly. "But even if I'm not always there for them, even if sometimes I forget their names or who they are, I _do_ care about them. So I suggest you tell me where my son is, _Zim_, or you'll be feeling a lot more pain where that came from." Zim was still incapable of responding; Membrane turned up the wattage.

* * *

Zim wasn't home yet. This was odd; as a former student, Dib knew for a fact that school had let out hours ago, and as a former stalker he knew Zim usually headed straight for the base. 

"GIR, do you have any idea where your master is?" he asked finally. GIR pulled away from the Scary Monkey Show (they'd come to an agreement on who watched TV when) just long enough to give him a blank stare.

"I guess that's a no," Dib read. At that instant, the doorbell rang. "Finally!" Hopping off the couch, he stretched and headed for the door. He had a sinking feeling of impending doom the instant he turned the doorknob, which was reinforced by the hand that shot through the doorway and latched onto his shirt collar.

"I _knew_ you were here!" Gaz growled. "C'mon Dib, we're going home!"

"Uh?" Dib recovered his wits and freed himself from the grim child's grasp. "Gaz? What are you doing here?"

"I SAID we're going HOME, Dib!" she repeated, ignoring his question and jerking his wrist this time.

"Well, not that I don't appreciate you coming to get me and all, but the government wants my GUTS, so I'm a little uncomfortable with going out in broad daylight." Granted, it was getting close to evening. Though Dib made a valid point, Gaz just didn't care, and proceeded to drag him out onto the sidewalk. "GAZ! Didn't you hear me?"

"We're going home now," she said once again. "Dad can change you back, or if he can't, he can get Zim too. Then he'll clear everything up with the government, and you can go back to school again and keep being my stupid brother and everything will go back to normal." To her surprise, Dib yanked his wrist free.

"I'm not going back, Gaz." Dib's tone was grave. "I'm never going back again."

"WHAT?" Gaz hissed through clenched teeth.

"You heard me!" Dib snapped. "I'm sick of humanity! They can protect themselves - or not, for all I care! I hate the life I had! Even being trapped here with ZIM isn't that bad! So you can go home, and tell Dad I - " He was cut off as Gaz delivered a punch to the side of his face. Dib grimaced and rubbed the sore spot. "Okay... can't say that was totally unexpected."

"You can come home by choice, Dib, or you can come by force," Gaz snarled. "But you're coming home." At that moment, Dib did the unthinkable:

"_No_." He defied Gaz's wrath.

There was a long, deadly silence.

"_What_ did you say, _Dib?_"

"I said no, Gaz."

"That's what I _thought_ you said." Witnesses in the area that day say the sky grew noticeably darker. You could almost hear the demonic music playing as Gaz's vengeful form lurched toward Dib, who was looking increasingly regretful of having stood up to his younger sister.

"G-Gaz... don't look at me like that... GAZ!" Gaz leapt forward, and Dib knew he was doomed. Next thing he knew, he had jumped several feet in the air and was clinging to a wall of the alleyway Zim's house was situated in. "Huh? How did - " It was then he noticed the four long, metal spider legs coming out of his Pak and buried in the brick wall. "WHOA! Cool." What wasn't cool was Gaz headed straight for him, fury doubled by her victim's attempt at escape. Dib let out a small shriek and launched off, backflipping over Gaz's head and landing five feet away among the security gnome field.

"Wow... these are so cool! It's like they're part of me!" Dib awed, skittering on the spider legs testingly. He didn't have long to admire his mechanical appendages, as just then Gaz kicked them out from under him with one sweep of her foot. The legs retracted and Dib fell on his stomach with an "oof", looking up in time to see Gaz about to bring a foot down full-force on his Pak. Unwilling to discover what the consequences of this would be, he rolled out of the way and extended the legs again, deftly dancing out of harm's way as Gaz pursued him.

"Don't try to escape me, Dib," Gaz threatened. "It's pointless. You can't escape my wrath... no one EVER escapes my wrath!" Spying a loose brick in the alley wall, Gaz pried it from the mortar and chucked it at Dib's Pak, causing a brief surge of electricity and a malfunction that made the spider legs slam Dib headlong into the brick wall. Dib groaned, legs folding limply as he slumped against the wall, seeing stars. Gaz strode up to him and punched him in the face, harder this time.

"Zim didn't escape my wrath," she continued. "Dad's probably experimenting on him right now."

"Uggh... WHAT?" Dib cried, snapping out of his head trauma-induced stupor at that. He lunged forward and grabbed Gaz by the collar of her dress. "What is Dad doing to Zim, Gaz? TELL ME!" Infuriated that he dare lay a finger on her, Gaz kneed Dib forcefully in the squeedly-spooch, causing him to double over and let go as he dropped to the ground. Gaz stood over him.

"Dib..." she began, Dib trying to crawl backward away from her. His metal legs splayed out behind him, dragging him along; his antennae twitched as one of the legs _clink_ed against something.

"Prepare..." Dib twisted his head backward to see what his spider leg had hit. _Just one of Zim's stupid green gnomes,_ he thought to himself with disappointment.

"To meet..." _...Wait a minute!_

"Your doo - " Gaz was cut off as Dib's sharp leg severed the gnome at its base and smacked it at Gaz, hitting her in the head full-force. Gaz groaned, and keeled over. Fearing the worst, Dib withdrew his spider legs and ran over to see if she was okay.

"Phew... she's just unconscious," he told himself, relieved, then looked trouble as he realized, "For how long?" It didn't matter; he couldn't stay here anyway. If Gaz was right, then Zim...

"I'm coming, ZIM!" he cried out as he had many times before - but never before with concern. With a bounty on his head and the public looking out for him, he obviously couldn't just walk over to his house. So, he let out his spider legs again and scampered up the alley wall, stopping atop the neighbor's roof to survey the height he'd scaled in a matter of seconds.

"Wow!" he exclaimed with an exhilarated grin, then put on a serious face as he remembered his mission. Legs ready, he started forth again. Taking long, fast strides and leaping over buildings in a single bound like some overdone superhero, he made it to the Membrane household in minutes. Jumping out on the flat blue stargazing roof, Dib remembered sitting here and listening for alien transmissions six months before Zim had arrived on Earth. He took the route into the kitchen he had taken then, sliding along a pipe to the kitchen window, his spider legs ensuring his safety and speeding the trip. He hopped through the window and into the sink. Fortunately, it wasn't filled with dishwater this time, or he would have been in trouble. Dib hopped to the floor, breathing deeply as he took in his familiar surroundings. It was hard to believe so much had changed since he'd fixed himself toast here a couple days ago. His nostalgic reminiscence was broken by the sound of Zim screaming weakly in agony.

"Zim!" Dib darted to the door of Membrane's lab and bolted through. "DAD!" he shouted dramatically. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

"Over here, son." Professor Membrane waved from a few tables over.

"Oh... okay then." He did a double take at the sight of Zim hanging limply from a nasty-looking contraption attached to the ceiling. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't moving. "ZIM! Dad, what did you do to him?" Dib cried in horror, using his spider legs to clamber over tables of failed gadgets, hazardous chemicals and mutated rodents to get to Zim.

"A better question is, what did he do to _you_?" Membrane replied, stepping in front of Dib's path and examining him with disappointment. "An alien... and just think of all the bad press this has generated!"

"I thought you didn't _believe_ in aliens," Dib answered snidely, maneuvering around Membrane on his spider legs. Membrane sighed.

"Son, the change has affected your brains. I have your original DNA saved, if you just calm down and let me secure you to an operating table I can - "

"You can experiment on me until you get it right?" Dib muttered bitterly, drawing back from his father's outstretched hand. "That's all Gaz and I ever were to you, when we were anything, Dad. You never got me right, anyway... what does it matter if I'm Irken or human?" Before his father could reply, Dib stretched up as far as spider legs would go and pulled open each of the restraints that kept Zim in place until he fell free. Dib caught Zim's unconscious form before he could hit the floor, noting that Irkens were either very strong, or Zim was surprisingly light. Lowering a little closer to the floor and turning around, Dib glared at Professor Membrane one last time.

"We're leaving now, Dad. Don't come looking for me, or Zim, ever again."

And he left.

Gaz arrived shortly afterward. She was in a foul mood, and at the moment seemed interested only in playing her Gameslave 2 until the world was dead to her.

"Daughter," Membrane said wearily, "I've been hallucinating, haven't I? My son isn't really an alien and neither is his little foreign friend?"

"Yeah, sure, hallucinating Dad," Gaz replied carelessly. "Dib and his stupid friend are just morons... also, you'll probably have a seizure right about now."

"Ah. Of course. HHBHBBLBBLBLBSSSSKKKKK!" Membrane gurgled, falling to the floor and thrashing about wildly. Gaz just growled and kept playing.

* * *

(Thanks for all the great, fast reviews, you guys! Please review this one and let me know what you think of it. Also, I shall now answer your questions as best I can: 

Whipped Cream and Sanoon: Hey! Zim's not... 'kay, I'll admit that a little 'tarded of him. Yeah, you're right, but that's why we love him, eh? As for ripping off his disguise, that's for another fic!

Atiken: I tried to have Membrane himself answer your questions in-story. Hope that was sufficient.

NathalieInvaderZee: Thanks! But you see, chestnut brown is _not_ an Irken eye color. The Irken eye colors are red, purple and green. The most common human eye color is brown; the most common Irken eye color is red. Thus, Irken Dib has red eyes. Besides, brown's kinda plain, red is coool.

shears and andalitebandit-6: The new chapter should've answered your questions.

I hope everyone enjoyed this, so until next time!)


	8. Give and Take

(A/N: So here it is - the final chapter. Sorry it was so long in coming, but my computer crashed and sent what I'd written of several stories, including this one, spiraling into the dark pits of oblivion. It was rather depressing, and I didn't feel like working on any of these stories and rewriting what had been lost after that. I'm glad I finally sat down and finished this, though - it's one of my favorite stories that I've written, and it deserves an ending. Personally, I like this version a lot better than the original. I hope you do too. Thanks to all my reviewers, and especially invader miz9898, for reminding me people still read this.

Disclaimer: I have boogers! But no ownership of Zim. Sorry.)

* * *

Chapter Eight

When Zim opened his eyes, he saw rooftops flashing by. Not realizing what they were at first, he watched them in a sort of hypnotic lull, before fulling coming to and realizing something had him around the waist.

"AH! RELEASE THE ALMIGHTY ZIM OR IT SHALL BE YOUR DOOM, uh, DOOM-MAKER!" he commanded, struggling to free himself.

"Zim! You're alive!" Dib cried with relief, stopping on one flat roof and setting him down carefully, leaning him against a metal flue. Zim stopped struggling and was strangely placid, examining Dib carefully.

"Dib?" he ventured; Dib nodded, his relieved smile rising eagerly to see what he'd say next. "What's wrong with your face?" The smile dropped.

"Great," Dib muttered, getting up and throwing his hands in the air. "I save you from my dad, and FIRST thing you do is insult me!"

"Eh? No, no, that's not what I meant," Zim continued, shaking his head, then staring at Dib intently. "I meant you look... concerned." Dib was uncomfortably quiet for a moment.

"Well, yeah," he admitted at last. "I thought you were dead, or in a coma at least."

"Not for lack of trying," Zim grumbled, rubbing an electric burn beneath his shirt. "That HORRIBLE human didn't stop shocking me for a - " He paused, then looked at Dib again with astonishment as his previous words sank in. "Wait... you SAVED me?"

"I... I did," Dib avered, suddenly surprised himself.

"WHY?" Zim demanded, getting to his feet. "You HATE me!"

"You saved me," Dib replied. "I guess I was just returning the favor. You know?"

Zim studied Dib accusingly for a moment, then looked away. "I know," he said at last, in a tone uncharacteristically somber for him. Dib tried to read Zim's expression and guess what it meant, but he'd never seen it on the alien before.

"Zim, what are you - " Before Dib could finish, Zim lunged forth and grabbed him, forcing his own mouth over the other's. Dib felt Zim's long red tongue snaking into his mouth; something in him moved his own tongue to coil around it. The two alien's tongues tied together tightly for one, blissful minute; then Zim's tongue slid free, as Zim himself pulled away.

"Huh - what?" Dib murmured, confused. He felt a stabbing pain in his back before he saw the extension that had come out of Zim's Pak and arched behind him, and realized the extension digging into his back was what causing the pain. While Dib had been distracted by the kiss, Zim had let the extension out and pricked him.

"I just wanted to see what it was like," Zim stated, the extension returning to his Pak as he backed away. His expression was grim. "Congratulations, Dib. It's what you wanted."

"Zim... you _jerk_!" Dib seethed, clutching his forehead as an unbearable headache overcame him, his vision going blurry as he began to weaken. "You jerk... what did you do... _Zim_..." But Zim had already extended his spider legs and clambered away, vanishing over the rooftops into the distance. Dib tried to follow him, but was too dizzy and stumbled, sprawling facefirst. "No... come back... how could you do this... you... _jerk_..." Then unconsciousness swept over him.

* * *

Dib awoke, facedown in the gravel of the rooftop. He groaned and pushed to his feet slowly, wincing as he touched the red impressions the gravel had left on his face. Zim was, of course, nowhere to be seen. Groaning more, he realized he couldn't see much of everything; his vision was horribly out of focus. Just like when he wasn't wearing his glasses... as a human.

He looked at his hands. All he saw were pale peach blurs, but they confirmed his suspicions, as did combing his hand over his head and feeling a head of hair and scythe-lock again. He heard something fall off his back; whirling around and seeing fuzzy pink spots on gray, he knew it was his Pak. Getting to his knees, he examined it carefully, but didn't see much more. Not that he would have anyway; his mind was whirling with too many contradicting thoughts to do much in the way of concentrating on external stimuli. On the hand, he should be happy he was human again - shouldn't he? So why did he have this aching feeling of longing in his gut?

"You jerk, Zim," he muttered again, pulling the Pak close to him and holding it tightly. "You jerk."

* * *

Life resumed as usual after that. Membrane disregarded any memories of Zim's capture and subsequent torture as hallucinations and continued with his work as though nothing had happened; Gaz beat him repeatedly with an old shoe, but nothing more; and the rest of the world decided the whole alien thing was just a big fat hoax when he turned up at school the next day, bespectacled and human as ever.

"He just did it for the attention," one student muttered to his friends as Dib passed by on his way to Ms. Bitters's class, and they nodded in full agreement.

Dib received a smackdown from Smacky before class started, which the other students participated in gleefully, leaving him with a black eye and several bruises by the time Bitters slithered in and slammed the door shut behind her. The other students immediately fled to their seats, and Dib's black eye twitched as he limped to his. Zim was so late he got whacked with the tardy beaver this time, but he merely adjusted his wig and took out his book, pretending to read it to avoid meeting Dib's gaze, despite it being upside-down. Not a single insane outburst. Dib would have noticed, but he was too busy avoiding the sight of Zim in turn. The next few hours dragged on miserably for Dib, accentuated by the dull thudding of bruises in his side and confusing sorrows in his head. The lunch hour bell was a heavenly trumphet when it rang out at last. Zim let himself be swept away by the flow of students; Dib followed lastly, alone with his thoughts.

Gaz was already sitting at the usual table. Dib sat down at it too, but found himself seated as far from his sibling as possible without falling off the bench. He stared at the mushy gray concoction he'd been served with misery.

"What's the matter?" Gaz asked, more taunting than caring as she pushed buttons on the GameSlave. "Creamed corn is your favorite." She peered at him meaningfully over the screen. "I'll eat it if you don't."

"Here," he said, shoving it toward her. Eyes never lifting from the screen, Gaz dumped the questionable food on her tray in one swift move, quick to return to her button-mashing. Doing his best to ignore the nauseating sound of his sister shoving spoonful after spoonful of corny paste into her mouth, Dib found himself gazing in Zim's direction. Alone as always, the alien only poked at his tray with a spoon half-heartedly.

"This is isn't right," Dib decided to himself after a while. Shoving away from the table, he got up and walked over to Zim's table. Zim's antennae twitched at Dib's arrival, but he didn't look his way.

"What do you want, stink-beast?" Despite his words, Zim's tone had no heart in it.

"I want what you took from me," Dib stated decisively without thinking about it too much.

Zim quirked an eyebrow, still not daring a glance. "What did I take from you?"

"I... I don't know!" Dib's breathing quickened as frustrated desperation rose in him. "But you took something! Ever since last night, I've felt like something was missing. So, whatever it is... give it back, you JERK!" Zim slammed down him spoon, ignoring the little bit of creamed corn that flecked on his face and made the skin sizzle where it touched, and leapt up on the table to glare down at Dib vehemently.

"_I'M _a 'jerk'?" Zim cried, putting a hand to his chest in melodramatic gesture. "HAH! You wanted to be human, Dib, and I gave it to you! Err... your humanity, I mean! I gave it back! Mother of Irk, did I ever give it back! What more do you want from me?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Dib screamed, clenching his fists by sides (this was usual; the rest of the cafeteria didn't even look up). "But something I DO know is that when I was an Irken, you treated me differently than you've ever treated me before! You treated me like... like..." He trailed off and shook his head. "Well, you're sure not treating me like it now! What's changed, Zim? Huh? Is it because I'm _human_?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, Earth-stink," Zim hissed, though his lensed eyes avoided Dib's gaze nervously.

"See? Like that! You didn't called me stuff like Earth-stink and pig-stink and whatever-stink when I was an Irken!" Dib went on. "But now that I'm human, you're doing it again. Just because I'm human! But I'm still the same person, Zim! Except for my species, nothing has changed, only YOUR stupid attitude!"

"SILENCE!" Zim shouted, then hopped back down in his seat and waved Dib away as calmly as he could manage. "Just GET AWAY, Earth-pig... leave Zim alone." It was impossible to miss the note of sorrow in his voice. Dib stood there anyway, panting hard as he tried to make up his mind on what to do.

"Last night, you took something from me," he insisted. "But you gave me something too. And I'm going to give it back." Zim opened his mouth to say something about what NONSENSE Dib was speaking, but Dib stopped him by covering his mouth with his own. This time, Zim's mouth was invaded by an alien tongue, fat and pink, but eager nonetheless. And somehow, Zim found his own tongue wrapping around it possessively. The Dib's saliva was water-based, but somehow, it didn't seem to burn too much; and what burning there was was a pleasant, almost refreshing sort of pain. The kiss continued for so long that some of the other students even started to notice, their jaws dropping incredulously.

When their tongues retracted, Zim wavered a little, almost dazed by this unprecedented sign of affection. Finally, he steadied himself and looked at Dib sharply.

"So what is it you want, Dib?" he demanded. "You wanted to be human... are you saying you want to be an Irken again now?"

"No," Dib answered honestly, shaking his head.

"Then what _do_ you want?" Zim persisted.

"I want to be with you," Dib smiled. "That's all." And Zim smiled too.

* * *

Not three months later, the Earth was another planet in the Irken Empire's roster, and the Tallest even got some use out of it, much to their own surprise. And just over 400 light-years away, an Irken and the only surviving Earthenoid honeymooned on a beautiful, grassy planet, while their dog-suited robot chased space bunnies.

**THE END.**


End file.
